Look! It's a bird! It's a plane! No It's America The Great...Superhero? 0.0

America has an excellent gift of documenting themselves and their history. Call them conceited but it's true. They will inject their influence in everything, especially in media. Yet, presenting self may be argued as an obvious feat to learned when founding a new nation. Setting themselves apart from the old ways of the world and accommodating the capacity for building a place where the past does not exist but where creation and re-creation can thrive is an exhilarating activity. How exciting it is to become new and improved; to know that you can change your life through transformation. I will give America an applause for the knowledge of and their agency in progression. They always know how to think forward.

So I'll use this thought as a point of departure for the notion of America as a super power (literally). Apart from it's economic hold on the rest of the world (American dollars are getting more and more valuable and expensive where I come from), America exhibits itself as a legitimate war power, and yet also prides itself in conforming to the dreams of "World Peace". (Kinda makes you wonder if the mission to kill Osama Bin Laden is truly symbolic of a new type of peace, or just to showcase American militia power orrrrr just to settle the unrest from the (now stale) 9/11 event. Killing to create peace; Is it a case of bad things happen for good reasons? Who knows, but that's a different story.

So before I go on an even bigger tangent, I'd like to express how we use these "peace and power" tropes to ignite American creativity and sense of self. If anybody likes American media, you must take into account it's procession into popular culture through magazines, specifically, Comic books which have also been made into film adaptations through TV shows and movies. I personally love the adventures of American Superheroes. Their fun and action-packed. But I hadn't fully realized that such Superheroes really have a place in American history. So i embarked on a little research and found out about the origins of Captain America. I remembered the not-too-recent movie trailer but I couldn't understand why anyone would give a superhero such a corny name. I figured it must have had something to do about the ultimate man saving the nation and keeping the nation immune from the extra-territorial evil powers (obviously).

So Captain America was published by Marvel Comics and written by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby during the 1940s. Captain America is the alter ego of Steve Rogers, a feeble young man whose body was enhanced to human perfection by an experimental serum. He was then used as an agent to help the US Government in efforts to win World War II. His costume bears the American flag and is used as a shield motif for all attacks made against him. He is armed with an indestructible boomerang-like shield which can be used both as a weapon and a defense against other weapons. He is usually depicted fighting enemies such as the AXIS powers (Germany-Italy-Japan). I even looked at other superheroes and found out that Iron Man is also an agent used to test progressions in American Technology in the fight against Communist influence. Other Superheroes are either simply born American or were placed in the context of the American landscape. Their purposes are to save humanity, protect against social injustice, terrorism, tyranny and other social ills. Heroes literally fighting for their lives and others reserving the peace of American society and possibly the wider world. The inherent paradox - creating world peace through war; One must fight through the chaos to find victory and of course one has to move through the damages of battle and to finally restoring harmonic balance and freedom for the nation. These superheroes reaallly took some lessons from the American anthem (if i may say so myself).

What I found increasingly astounding however is how America can use Benjamin Franklin's platform of autobiography to reshape American history and more importantly, the average American man into the ultimate omnipotent figure. (Such a huge ego boost). These heroes are completely patriotic. It's a fascinating institution - the world of youthful entertainment literature can capture the theme of 'America The Great' in one single character. It's amazing the impact on future generations too. Young people would like to look up to the figure of Captain America and say: "When I grow up, I wanna be just like Captain America and protect my country and the world!". America has gone through many transformations but I believe this is one of the most intriguing. America has literally refashioned and chronicled themselves into a totally new symbol of power and prowess - a figure of the wholly moral, indestructible, super-strengthened, ultra-cool (decked out with gadgets), and perfectly good-looking. He is the definitive of the American man. He is the American pride and joy. He is the American soul. *queue Superhero themed music and image of superhero overlooking the vast landscape of America*